Dish Network & Viacom Settle Their Differences

weshart writes "I haven't yet seen anyone mention the fact that CBS and other Viacom channels are back on DishNetwork. They've been unavailable for the past day and a half, as was reported earlier. No word on the details of the agreement; and the DishNetwork announcement doesn't say anything about whether or not they'll be raising their rates."

Comments

I've learned how few channels I care about

[SydShamino]

After a few nights of "Off line - Press Info" on a host of Viacom-owned channels in my lineup, I've realized how little I cared for those channels anyway. I almost never watched VH1 or Nickelodeon or CBS, but I kept them in my channel list on the off chance a decent show popped up.

Now, I think I can safely remove them from my favorites list and reduce the scrolling in the guide between useful channels.

There's nothing like being deprived of something to learn how little you needed it in the first place.

MOD PARENT UP - Re:Package Pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you've got it exactly right. I work for a (not-to-be-named-top-tier) cable company. It is simply not possible for us to offer channels on an individual basis because of the media conglomerates, like Viacom, forcing us to offer their channels in all-or-none blocks. The best we can really do is three tiers: (1) basic cable, which is the local networks which are (usually) independently owned, (2) expanded basic, which has those plus the aforementioned blocks from the various conglomerates, and (3) digital, which has the other channels plus all the REALLY crappy ones that we were able to negotiate out of expanded basic, plus various indepdendent networks. It's really quite ridiculous. Every time we renegotiate a deal, there are always a bunch of crap channels that we end up having to add, which nobody watches and which force us to raise rates. Believe me, nobody would like total a la carte programming more than the cable companies--our profits would increase tremendously if we could sell the networks individually, at a reasonable profit, rather than taking a tiny profit on package deal for a dozen crap networks. We've gotten LOTS of feedback over the years--there are MANY customers who would love to pay $40/month for 40 individually selected channels over $100/month for 200 forced channels. And we would turn a much higher profit in the $40/month case. But it's simply not possible, due to precisely the reason you mentioned.